The existence of prehistoric pottery shards paints a clear picture of ancient artisanal practices while highlighting ancestral clumsiness. Leave behind traces of your own civilization with today's Groupon: for $12, you get $25 worth of paint-your-own pottery, hot-glass crafting, and other pottery creations at The Clay Canvas in Oxford, Mississippi.

The Clay Canvas stokes its kiln for potters of all experience levels, leading crafty customers through a range of creative do-it-yourself craft activities. With a little guidance from the expert employees, customers transform mundane kitchenware into their new magnum drinking opuses, bedecking coffee mugs ($14–$20) or original plates ($15+) with intricate designs or eye-pleasing pictures. Cleanse mud-caked piggy banks and let them metamorphose into beautiful coin vaults with improved exchange rates ($15+). Potters can also select a traditional Japanese raku piece to glaze and send off to be fired in the studio's sizzling flame pit. The paint weary can ditch their brushes, opting instead to create a one-of-a-kind knickknack out of their own empty bottles or selections from The Clay Canvas's System 96 glass. Artists melt the amorphous silicates in the blazing womb of an oven to reshape it as they see fit, crafting glimmering paperweights to pin down unruly papers, beautiful geometric glass art to please the eye, or just huge wads of melted stuff.